Free Republic

1. The arrestWhen the Cienfuegos family landed at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 15, 2020, they looked excited and maybe a bit relieved. With the pandemic still ravaging Mexico, they had come to vacation in Southern California. Arranging such a visit wasn’t a problem, even on short notice: The patriarch, retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, had made powerful American friends during his six years as Mexico’s defense minister. When he needed a favor — like visas for his wife, daughters and granddaughters — he could still call someone at the Pentagon or the C.I.A. But as the family approached...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General William Barr spoke with Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard last week to try to lower bilateral tension arising from the U.S. arrest of a former Mexican defense minister on drugs charges, two Mexican sources said on Monday. Mexico says it should have had prior warning about the arrest and investigation of the former minister and retired army officer, Salvador Cienfuegos, who pleaded not guilty to drug charges in a Brooklyn federal court last week. Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said he will announce a review of security cooperation agreements with the...

Orthodox Jewish religious schools (yeshivas) carry on in spite of New York state orders to shut down in coronavirus "hotspots".... In Israel new less strict coronavirus lockdown rules laid out.... Today police in Thailand trying to put down anti-monarchist protesters with stinging liquid fired from water cannons.... Turkey firing a missile today along its northern coast in what is believed to be a test of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system..... European Union leaders condemning "unilateral actions and provocations" by Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean.... In a Paris suburb a decapitation attack on a middle school teacher the attacker shouting...